Christmas is for kids. I’m 48 and it’s still true. Every year I go home to Brandon to spend Christmas with my folks. It will have to change someday, but it won’t be because of me.

In fact, it has changed already, unwilling though I was to allow it. I’m Santa now. I never wanted the job. My dad was always the guy. On Christmas Eve he would take his place in the rocking chair beside the Christmas tree and prepare to hand out the presents, one by one, with decent intervals between each gift so that they could be opened and appreciated properly. The entire process takes several hours, during which snacks and a traditional non-alcoholic fruit punch is consumed, although never enough of the punch to prevent there being litres left over after Christmas, leaving Mom to annually declare that she won’t make it anymore amid predictable howls of protest. It’s all tradition.

In recent years, though, Dad’s deteriorating eyesight made it too hard to read the gift tags in the dim light of the Christmas tree. Reluctantly I took his seat. Now I’m the one who doles out the stuff.

Years ago the audience for that annual performance shrank to three, me included. As the only one of five kids who never hitched up and procreated, I was the only one with no other family commitments except the original one—to spend the holidays with my parents. Christmas is for kids, and there’s a loophole hidden there—no expiry date. A 48-year-old Halloween trick-or-treater would not go over well, but Christmas is different. You can always go home, as long as it’s still there.

It’s still there this year. Knock wood, the seats will be full. Dad is in hospital at this writing. Whatever the trouble is, it’s been eluding proper diagnosis and treatment for too many weeks now. As I head for the airport he’s still in captivity and still the subject of inconclusive tests. I hope and expect he’ll be out by Christmas, because it’s important. Whatever the particular problem is on this occasion, the real problem is a birthday that is 81 years past and steadily receding. Mom is 80. I used to use passing Christmases to count up the years, but it’s different these days. Now it’s a countdown.

My folks and I have come to love our quiet Christmases. Very adult, very uneventful. I know Mom and Dad love their grandchildren, but at this age, in a frigid Prairie winter when hyperactive youngsters have nowhere to go but off the walls, there is a secret relief that the only child in the house lost his extra bounce decades ago.

Christmas celebrations in our family have long since moved from Christmas morning to Christmas Eve. Since Dad was once a United Church minister he was busy on Christmas Day, and so as soon as the Santa Claus issue was put to rest the whole family agreed to move the celebration to the night before. Soon, we all agreed we wouldn’t have it any other way. The lights twinkle in the winter dark, the candles glow—very festive indeed. Now it’s down to just the three of us, and we always have a lovely time.

I never decorate my apartment back home. Why bother? Christmas lives in Brandon at my parents’ house. And although I have felt privileged to continue sharing the holidays with Mom and Dad over the years while my siblings repaired to their own homes and families, I know that there will be consequences. There’s a Christmas game of musical chairs playing out. When the carols stop I will have nowhere to go. What will Christmas mean to me when my parents are gone? One of my mother’s favourite carols is “In the Bleak Midwinter.” I am already dreading the feeling I will get, someday in the future, when Decembers will come around and I will hear that song with no prospect of fulfilling my beloved holiday routine.

One year I got a little taste of that future. I had my flight home all booked but, second-generation Scot that I am, I made the fateful and stupid decision to take a bus to the airport. With maybe 90 minutes’ lead time. It’s hard to feel sympathy for anyone that dumb, but try for my sake. The bus was packed. Every single block the cord would be pulled, the bell would ring, and the bus would trundle over to the curb like some big Pavlovian beast. The clock jogged on. My brain was screaming. A city bus to the airport—what had I been thinking? It was like making a sandwich with flour, yeast, some cream, and a butter churn. Finally I jumped off, desperately trying to hail a cab. But it was too late. By the time I arrived the gates had closed on my Canada 3000 charter flight, and despite my carefully calibrated attempt to pry them open by screaming abuse at an unfortunate attendant, they stayed closed. I would not be home for Christmas Eve that year.

Canada 3000 eventually folded for reasons I will not divulge—suffice to say it is a mistake to disappoint me. But I learned my lesson and took no more foolish chances. Cabs to the airport, with plenty of advance time. I wanted to claim every remaining Christmas the three of us would be allotted.

This year I’m on my way earlier than usual. With Dad in the hospital my siblings have been taking turns flying home to help out, and now it’s my turn. If need be, we will get him out of that hospital with a crowbar.

Some things have changed over the years. The tree is now a very convincing artificial model. There’s a new Santa in town. I tend to forget what gifts I receive, which sure as hell never happened when I was 10.

But I’m going home again. Not for the last time, I hope. These days, it’s one Christmas at a time. That’s not a bad way to take them.

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Since 2006, regular contributor Steve Burgess has written five personal essays for Swerve about his family, some of which were published in his book Who Killed Mom? To read Burgess's other Swerve essays, visit these links below:

Christmas present is going to be nothing like Christmases past. With his aging parents having to move into a seniors complex, a concerned son finds himself looking for new family traditions in Room 116 of the local holiday inn. (Published Dec. 12, 2008.)

Over the past three years, Steve Burgess has shared the tears and the laughter of his parents’ sunset years with Swerve readers. As his mother’s final battle draws to its bittersweet conclusion, he holds on to her remarkable spirit. (Published Aug. 07, 2009.)

When my parents left their nest of 37 years, they didn’t move into an old folks’ home. Instead, they took up residence in a holiday retirement community that offers bingo, whist, carpet bowling, singalongs, movie nights, three meals a day and a flock of memorable characters. (Published Oct. 16, 2009.)

Wishing for an adult and uneventful Christmas. (Published Sep.28, 2012.)

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